EUAA publishes Asylum report with EU set to reform its asylum system
The European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) has published its annual flagship Asylum Report. The organization has used input from Civil Society, Member States’ national authorities and independent judiciaries, as well as key statistical data from the EUAA Early warning and Preparedness System (EPS) and Eurostat to provide a balanced update on the asylum situation in Europe.
Based on the report, around 70 % of applications in 2022 were lodged in five receiving countries, including Germany (244 000), France (156 000), Spain (118 000), Austria (109 000), and Italy (84 000). As in previous years, the top countries of origin were Syria (138 000) and Afghanistan (132 000), followed by Türkiye (58 000), Venezuela (51 000) and Colombia (43 000).
The report further adds that, in 2022, EU+ countries took around 646 000 decisions on applications at first instance, the most since 2017. Of the 252 000 positive decisions, around 59 % granted refugee status and 41 % provided subsidiary protection. The recognition rate stood at 39 %, the highest since 2017, meaning that around 2-in-5 applications were successful. Taken together, Germany (31 %), France (20 %), Spain (13 %), Italy (8 %), Austria (6 %) and Greece (6 %) issued over four fifths of all decisions.
However, despite the increased pace in decision-taking in 2022, because of the surge in applications linked to conflict, instability, and food insecurity in many regions of origin, the number of pending decisions rose to 899 000 in 2022.
